Five ways the cloud is evolving IT management for mid-sized organizations

This blog was originally posted by Concerto Cloud Services. Since then, Concerto Cloud Services has become DXC Concerto, the mid-market cloud offering within DXC Technology.

All of the IT resources in the world can’t reverse the devastation of a cyber-breach or major outage. For a large enterprise with deep resources, strong security and backup systems are becoming more prevalent, but let’s be real. Prevention and mitigation can be a lot more challenging for mid-sized organizations.

It isn’t just IT security or redundant systems that mid-sized businesses struggle with. It is the other aches and pains relative to maintaining a classic IT infrastructure: a lack of automated tasks, break/fix situations that reduce productivity, aging hardware, mismatched licensing and the high price tag of retaining top IT talent, not to mention inflating and surprise costs.

There’s a new model that is poised to disrupt the traditional IT approach. It is IT automated and delivered through the cloud. Just as taxi cabs have given way to services like Uber and Lyft, streaming services have changed music and video publishing, and Amazon has transformed how we make purchases, cloud-delivered IT can evolve into a complete, managed service.

Here are five ways that cloud-delivered IT evolves classic approaches:

1. Eliminate the budget wild card.

How often do you think about your IT budget? I’m willing to bet it’s nearly every day. How much more is needed year over year for surprise costs such as overages, or technicians to address the myriad of issues that arise?

Cloud automated IT is a combination of services that include cloud-based desktops and IT infrastructure, firewall-as-a-service, edge-device security, as well as monitoring, management and support. Combining these services into a complete IT infrastructure in the cloud can eliminate the wild card in the IT budget by aligning and including all managed services needed to ensure security, performance, uptime, computing power, backups and much more – all for a monthly predictable cost and a guaranteed uptime.

2. Seal security gaps and stop the spread of issues.

Securing systems within core environments poses many unique challenges, from ensuring all users are adhering to security protocols, to filling gaps caused by multiple licensing and versions across users. What’s more, the most dangerous security threats are due to common mistakes from users who fall victim to the latest scheme.

To keep pace with evolving cyber attacks, every business must adopt a strategy that protects, detects and responds to threats.

Hackers, viruses, phishing and other threats affect business systems of all types and sizes every day. For example, cyber criminals can gain access through dormant accounts to secure environments and steal crucial information. Viruses and malware can spread quickly across a network to impact the entire organization.

Cloud-based IT can secure organizations in three ways. First, these modern managed services assume responsibility of security through firewall services, intrusion detection, monitoring and more. Second, users’ cloud-based desktops reset automatically upon startup and can be reset at any point much like a mobile phone, essentially isolating security issues in their tracks to reduce the spread across a network. Third, cloud-based IT can be configured to support and align to specific compliance standards such as HIPAA, PCI, ITAR, FIPS, CJIS, SOX and others. These modern protections represent a huge value to mid-size organizations.

3. Simplify access and support for users.

Digital transformation has forever changed the way we work. Your team expects easy access and support, regardless of office location or traveling in the field. Balancing these expectations with managing support tickets, all while innovating for the future, is a tall order for IT professionals. And for mid-sized organizations, this often means outsourcing specific skills, tasks or support functions in order to achieve a holistic solution.

Cloud-based IT can simplify these aspects for both the IT department and the larger organization. By converging these services and standardizing on the best-in-class technologies at once, IT support tickets see a dramatic reduction and access is simplified and secured. (One cloud-automated IT client achieved a virtual elimination of support requests from users who were experiencing a high number of issues when traveling in the field.) Included support and the ability to reset desktop environments through the cloud not only makes the computing experience a better one, but also frees up IT professionals to focus on the next strategic move for their organization.

4. Future-proof the organization.

There’s an app or system for every function these days, but how much can your business reasonably implement and manage under the traditional IT model?

Cloud-based IT models give organizations a modern and scalable platform on which to build. No longer does deploying a new solution require buying servers or integrating with existing systems. Cloud-based IT works as a delivery platform for all of the organization’s systems, whether they be SaaS, hosted applications or an on-premises legacy system that’s still on the list for transformation. Cloud-based IT makes transformation easier and quicker for mid-size businesses.

5. Reduce risk from disasters (both natural and user-related).

Most mid-size businesses have back up and disaster recovery plans in place. But whether that means back up of specific systems and servers, policies to ensure that users are backing up data, or the use of cloud-backup, many organizations still have risk areas with incomplete or untested backup plans.

Cloud-based IT reduces these risks by including full redundancy of both the IT infrastructure and data (through failover to a secondary data center), as well as backing up the user’s machine data on a regular basis. This reduces dependency on policies that expect users to perform their own backups, as well as the number of services needed to achieve disaster recovery and streamlines costs.

There’s a better way to deliver IT

Cloud automated IT is a solution and delivery model that eliminates traditional IT stumbling blocks. A fully functioning IT department in the cloud, businesses benefit from having a built-in disaster recovery and fully managed IT infrastructure (includes desktops, security, maintenance and support) in one all-inclusive, predicable monthly fee.

These enterprise-grade technologies have often been costly or challenging to align for mid-sized organizations under a classic IT model.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DXC Concerto, the mid-market cloud offering within DXC Technology, specializes in providing a best-in-class multi-cloud platform that helps organizations in North America accelerate digital transformation and realize their full potential. Our blog provides real world advice and thought leadership on how to make cloud adoption easy. Topics cover public, private and hybrid cloud technologies as well as how to better manage risk and reduce operational challenges. Join the conversation to weigh in on cloud solutions impacting our world today and into the future.